Thatcher dead

[pominoz]

She was a self serving **** with no regard for anyone but her "kind" and those she thought
'above" her.

What was her kind?

Good question, considering she grew up in a shop.

Her father was active in local politics and the Methodist church, serving as an alderman and a local preacher, and brought up his daughter as a strict Methodist.

There's a clue.

 

[BoyBlue_1985]

What was her kind?

Good question, considering she grew up in a shop.

Her father was active in local politics and the Methodist church, serving as an alderman and a local preacher, and brought up his daughter as a strict Methodist.

There's a clue.

A Lesbian then

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

Why do people insist on implying that we lived in some sort of utopia before 1979, where we all had great jobs and life was just rosy? The truth is that we were completely skint as a country and unemployment was at then record levels. British Leyland had gone bust and been bailed out in 1975 and British Steel was already planning to reduce capacity. They had too many people producing too little steel at too high a cost in too many under-utilised plants. If anyone is to blame for the decline of the British Steel industry it's probably Churchill, who tore up plans to invest in and reform the industry during his tenure. Places like Corby & Consett are quick to blame Thatcher for their problems but the plans to close those steelworks were already in place before she came to power.

The only reason unemployment wasn't much higher was that public money (money we didn't have as the IMF were bailing us out at the time) was being pumped into loss-making and dying industries just to keep people in work. You can argue about the rights and wrongs of that but you can't argue that it couldn't have continued for very much longer. And one of the factors that required action to be taken sooner rather than later was the 1979 oil crisis following the Iranian revolution when production plummeted and prices more than doubled. I notice Labour apologists are quick to blame the global liquidity crisis for our current economic woes but blame Thatcher for those of the early 1980's, forgetting the constraints she was under.

The coal industry was also in decline and had been for 15 years by the time Thatcher came to power. Pits were being closed on a regular basis as demand declined. But even after the Miners' strike, we still produced 100m tons of coal a year. Whatever happened, that would have declined significantly as we moved away from dirty fuels like coal.

I'd certainly agree that the YTS scheme was a scandal and as a union rep in an engineering environment I railed against it as short-sighted. It offered false hope to people but was that much worse than the false hope offered by the previous government, which used public money to keep people in jobs that had no future?

These problems would have to have been faced and tackled sooner or later and it's certainly legitimate to question whether there was a better way to manage this process but you simply cannot question the need to take some action.

Great post PB and completely on the money.

I remember seeing a documentary about the unions in the sixties and seventies and Peter Shore, an inveterate socialist and anti-European, was interviewed for the programme and he said (and I paraphrase, but only slightly):

'Whatever way you look at it, it is difficult escaping from the fact that the Unions were given tremendous power and they blew their chance when they were'.

I guess we all reshape history according to our view of the world to some extent, but the levels of denial by the left with regards to the state of the nation in 1979, and the reasons for it, are beyond those normal levels of subjective re-alignment, possibly because it would militate against their justification for hating the woman who they seek to blame for everything.

As I have said before her record as PM was one of unfulfilled opportunities, but the job she had to undertake in 1979 should never be underestimated.

 

[BluePurgatory]

I don't care what anyone thinks of her! Can anyone really say that things have improved since she resigned? I thought she was what we needed at the time. I watched her final speech on playback tv, last night and to say she wipe the floor with Kinnock and his cronies is an understatement. This country would have been in a bigger mess without her.

 

[crystal_mais]

Why do people insist on implying that we lived in some sort of utopia before 1979, where we all had great jobs and life was just rosy? The truth is that we were completely skint as a country and unemployment was at then record levels. British Leyland had gone bust and been bailed out in 1975 and British Steel was already planning to reduce capacity. They had too many people producing too little steel at too high a cost in too many under-utilised plants. If anyone is to blame for the decline of the British Steel industry it's probably Churchill, who tore up plans to invest in and reform the industry during his tenure. Places like Corby & Consett are quick to blame Thatcher for their problems but the plans to close those steelworks were already in place before she came to power.

The only reason unemployment wasn't much higher was that public money (money we didn't have as the IMF were bailing us out at the time) was being pumped into loss-making and dying industries just to keep people in work. You can argue about the rights and wrongs of that but you can't argue that it couldn't have continued for very much longer. And one of the factors that required action to be taken sooner rather than later was the 1979 oil crisis following the Iranian revolution when production plummeted and prices more than doubled. I notice Labour apologists are quick to blame the global liquidity crisis for our current economic woes but blame Thatcher for those of the early 1980's, forgetting the constraints she was under.

The coal industry was also in decline and had been for 15 years by the time Thatcher came to power. Pits were being closed on a regular basis as demand declined. But even after the Miners' strike, we still produced 100m tons of coal a year. Whatever happened, that would have declined significantly as we moved away from dirty fuels like coal.

I'd certainly agree that the YTS scheme was a scandal and as a union rep in an engineering environment I railed against it as short-sighted. It offered false hope to people but was that much worse than the false hope offered by the previous government, which used public money to keep people in jobs that had no future?

These problems would have to have been faced and tackled sooner or later and it's certainly legitimate to question whether there was a better way to manage this process but you simply cannot question the need to take some action.

Great post PB and completely on the money.

I remember seeing a documentary about the unions in the sixties and seventies and Peter Shore, an inveterate socialist and anti-European, was interviewed for the programme and he said (and I paraphrase, but only slightly):

'Whatever way you look at it, it is difficult escaping from the fact that the Unions were given tremendous power and they blew their chance when they were'.

I guess we all reshape history according to our view of the world to some extent, but the levels of denial by the left with regards to the state of the nation in 1979, and the reasons for it, are beyond those normal levels of subjective re-alignment, possibly because it would militate against their justification for hating the woman who they seek to blame for everything.

As I have said before her record as PM was one of unfulfilled opportunities, but the job she had to undertake in 1979 should never be underestimated.

Agreed -

at the time it was difficult especially as an asian family and it was hard seeing my parents struggle. But we got through it, with my parents getting their heads down and working harder with what opportunities were presented to them.

 

[TonyBook]

What was her kind?

Good question, considering she grew up in a shop.

Her father was active in local politics and the Methodist church, serving as an alderman and a local preacher, and brought up his daughter as a strict Methodist.

There's a clue.

Labour?<br /><br />-- Wed Apr 10, 2013 1:42 pm --<br /><br />

Why do people insist on implying that we lived in some sort of utopia before 1979, where we all had great jobs and life was just rosy? The truth is that we were completely skint as a country and unemployment was at then record levels. British Leyland had gone bust and been bailed out in 1975 and British Steel was already planning to reduce capacity. They had too many people producing too little steel at too high a cost in too many under-utilised plants. If anyone is to blame for the decline of the British Steel industry it's probably Churchill, who tore up plans to invest in and reform the industry during his tenure. Places like Corby & Consett are quick to blame Thatcher for their problems but the plans to close those steelworks were already in place before she came to power.

The only reason unemployment wasn't much higher was that public money (money we didn't have as the IMF were bailing us out at the time) was being pumped into loss-making and dying industries just to keep people in work. You can argue about the rights and wrongs of that but you can't argue that it couldn't have continued for very much longer. And one of the factors that required action to be taken sooner rather than later was the 1979 oil crisis following the Iranian revolution when production plummeted and prices more than doubled. I notice Labour apologists are quick to blame the global liquidity crisis for our current economic woes but blame Thatcher for those of the early 1980's, forgetting the constraints she was under.

The coal industry was also in decline and had been for 15 years by the time Thatcher came to power. Pits were being closed on a regular basis as demand declined. But even after the Miners' strike, we still produced 100m tons of coal a year. Whatever happened, that would have declined significantly as we moved away from dirty fuels like coal.

I'd certainly agree that the YTS scheme was a scandal and as a union rep in an engineering environment I railed against it as short-sighted. It offered false hope to people but was that much worse than the false hope offered by the previous government, which used public money to keep people in jobs that had no future?

These problems would have to have been faced and tackled sooner or later and it's certainly legitimate to question whether there was a better way to manage this process but you simply cannot question the need to take some action.

Great post PB and completely on the money.

I remember seeing a documentary about the unions in the sixties and seventies and Peter Shore, an inveterate socialist and anti-European, was interviewed for the programme and he said (and I paraphrase, but only slightly):

'Whatever way you look at it, it is difficult escaping from the fact that the Unions were given tremendous power and they blew their chance when they were'.

I guess we all reshape history according to our view of the world to some extent, but the levels of denial by the left with regards to the state of the nation in 1979, and the reasons for it, are beyond those normal levels of subjective re-alignment, possibly because it would militate against their justification for hating the woman who they seek to blame for everything.

As I have said before her record as PM was one of unfulfilled opportunities, but the job she had to undertake in 1979 should never be underestimated.

Agreed -

at the time it was difficult especially as an asian family and it was hard seeing my parents struggle. But we got through it, with my parents getting their heads down and working harder with what opportunities were presented to them.

Bang on the money Gentlemen.

 

[BluePurgatory]

Don't be daft did you not know that all Labour leaders were evangelical atheist's.!

 

[pominoz]

Good question, considering she grew up in a shop.

Her father was active in local politics and the Methodist church, serving as an alderman and a local preacher, and brought up his daughter as a strict Methodist.

There's a clue.

A Lesbian then

No, brought up by a self made man (as far as i can tell), and thought that if he could do it,so should everyone else.
Life is not like that, most of it is down to the opportunities you are given, under her reign not many were given to "the likes of us".

 

[Skashion]

By now you should have a flavor of just how twisted from the truth the lefties will go, I could carry on but its far more use telling you to look things up for yourself.

Maggie Thatcher was honest, did what needed to be done for the sake of the country rather than pander to populist nonsense, and rescued this country from the brink, anyone says different go look up the facts for yourself........then tell them they are idiots.

Comedy. You talk of truth telling and facts and yet several times you talked about the country being bankrupt under Labour. What a farcical comment to make. Bankruptcy is when the worth of your assets don't exceed your debt. Britain was not only not at that point, it was never anywhere near that point. You've imagined this out of thin air.

[bigimg]http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/public-sector-debt-perc-gdp-hmT.png[/bigimg]

As you can see, our public debt actually went DOWN under Callaghan. Of course it went down too, under the latter years of Thatcher after remaining steady for a while but you should expect that for two reasons:

1. North Sea oil, brought in huge revenues Callaghan never had. If you want to see the impact it had, see this: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.edmundconway.com/2013/04/thatcher-and-north-sea-oil/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.edmundconway.com/2013/04/tha ... h-sea-oil/</a>
2. Selling off of public assets.

However, selling off public assets i.e. privatisation, doesn't improve your situation with respect to bankruptcy does it? It's simply using an asset to pay off a debt. It doesn't make you richer unless you sell above market value. But Thatcher didn't sell above market value did she? She sold below market value. Well below market value. I think I'm right in saying everything that was privatised at least doubled its floatation price on the first day with many highly oversubscribed. The privatised companies have certainly done well since: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/f35867fa-2e06-11df-b85c-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2Q43J83O3" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/f35867fa-2e06 ... z2Q43J83O3</a> Which suggest perhaps Thatcher threw money away rather than made any of it?

You could also say the oil money was poorly spent as well. Indeed, she is frequently criticised for not setting up a Sovereign Wealth Fund like many other oil rich nations have and who are in much better financial positions. It was pretty much squandered in my opinion.

Anyway, I enjoyed that trip down fact alley. :-)

 

[TonyBook]

Don't be daft did you not know that all Labour leaders were evangelical atheist's.!

Isn't that an oxymoron?

See here: -

<a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelicalism" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelicalism</a>